The Life of a Headcrab
by Wallace Breen
Summary: A seriously misunderstood headcrab tries to fix his life, and stop the so-called apocalypse without resorting to anything his fellow species does to make sure he's taken seriously and stop him being a threat. He's still a monster, so what more can he do?
1. Who am I?

_Who am I? They call me a headcrab._

_Why don't they like me? Because I kill them. At least, other headcrabs do._

_It's not my fault. It's just what I do. I want to talk to you, but you try to kill me. There's nothing simpler than letting me try to communicate. But when you come from a place where all you can do is take and destroy, there's not much chance of them thinking of you differently, especially when you're technically a monster. Yes, I'm small, I have four legs, no eyes and a huge mouth. I was born to kill. I take over nervous systems and control my host. I've not done that, ever. I'm different._

Death. That's all that's left here. Bodies, rotting away, organs littering the streets. Some are burnt, some are missing parts, and some are just lying there. On a rooftop, a single raven stirs. It flaps its wings lightly, gliding to the ground in search of its next meal. It hops over to a doorway left open, and looks at a corpse left sitting with its back to a wall. It flies up to its head, but under its claws it feels wrong... The arm swings up, gripping the bird tightly. It's taken to the gaping hole in the chest, and stuffed straight inside the stomach. The zombie lies down against the wall again, ready for the next passing meal.

_I walk along the streets, looking at the rotting bodies everywhere. I can see so many of us, but they're asleep, waiting for a meal. Sometimes I wonder what it's like, to have a body, to feel with hands, to eat, to sleep. But I know that if I do that then there will be no going back._

The last Combine helicopter took off, with one extra, unexpected passenger, hanging on.

_And now I'm there. The next city. This one's under attack as well. There's shooting everywhere, and zombies of all kinds. Combine, too. Rebels, humans, robots. All of them fighting each other, except for the robots that just stand in the way. I don't know what I'll do, or where I'll go. I need to find somebody important and see if they'll listen. Whatever else, I'll have to find out._

City 17 was under attack. Headcrabs everywhere. They had amassed hordes of zombies, and were slowly taking over. Headcrabs were being shot on sight. Bodies littered the streets here, too, but less so, and definitely none were zombies. At least, none were zombies with headcrabs.

_There were a few close moments when I was almost attacked. One person shot at me, another tried to hit me with a crowbar, but I managed to escape. And now I walk on, looking for a target._


	2. Gordon

Sight... smell... sound... the City hammered on the senses like a sledgehammer. There was no way anything could concentrate here, but still, there was a small creature, sleeping in a corner...

_There was a sound. A new sound here, the sound of footsteps. That must have been what woke me up. Somebody was coming. I crawled through a small opening in the metal wall, and waited to see what would happen. A man, dressed in a strange metallic suit, orange-and-silver, with a familiar __λ__ mark on his chest, walked by. He, too, was holding a crowbar. He ignored me entirely, but when another headcrab attacked, he swatted it out of the air like... like... I'm not sure what the word would be. Suffice to say that he will not need to do it again._

Darkness. A smell of old rust. Silence. Down here, there was nothing but corroded steel girders travelling across, down, diagonally, as if some god had decided to play pick-up-sticks and left halfway through the second game.

_The man obviously seemed important. Now I had just got to find a way to communicate with him. He was walking quite quickly, not paying attention to anything except the walls, floor and ceiling in front of him, possibly in case of another attack. Through the maze of steel we go, not far underground, the sound of huge wheeled machines riding along their tracks echoing around us. Soon there was light. Not from above ground, but from a female holding a torch. She spoke rapidly in that strange human accent, impossible to understand. I caught the word "Gordon" a few times, but then nothing else. They had moved on, leaving me behind. I followed them as far as I could in the shadows, but I soon lost track of the beam of light, and settled down again. I couldn't sleep, though; the humans had piqued my curiosity.I closed my eyes and thought._


End file.
